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A Step-by-Step Guide to Building Your First Mobile App

Building a mobile app for the first time seems to be a daunting task, as most of the beginners don’t know where to start from. In today’s fast paced mobile app market, thousands of mobile apps are evolving every day. To ensure visibility of the mobile app in such a complex environment, you need to be particular about the approach followed by reputed mobile app developers.

In this post, I will guide you through a step-by-step approach to build your first mobile app. After going through this post, you will get answers to questions like –

What are the different stages of app development?

How to become a great app entrepreneur?

How to effectively control all stages of app development?

Go through the step-by-step guide that gives you baseline of building an app while you discover some advanced features of mobile app development.

Step 1 – Know the purpose of mobile app

To build a great app, you need a great idea. If you go through some of the reputed mobile apps, you will know that they have an objective and are designed to identify and resolve a problem. Having a great idea is the starting point of any new mobile app. It is better to go straight into detail and define the purpose of your app. You should be able to know what part of the app is going to make it better. Defining the purpose of your app will help you start the project faster.

Step 2- Know your target audience

Know the target audience of your app. You can do this by talking to the people and gathering insights of what they actually want. Listen carefully to audience opinion, as your idea may likely to receive resistance at the first. You can convince the users by pinpointing major issues your ideas. You must present the idea with passion and accept the challenge. During initial brainstorming session, you might have different ideas. Note down all the ideas and break them to check what idea will work and why people should use it.

Step 3 – Analyze the performance of similar apps

Check the category in which your app is going to fit into. You need to check the apps created previously in this category and analyze their performance. This is the best way to analyze the competitors of your app. You can do this by checking the app in terms of content quality, ease of use, pricing, navigation and availability. If there are any gaps in the competitor apps, you can focus on that points and leverage against them. Check Google’s keyword planner to analyze the competition by entering relevant keywords. You can even use tools that help you find what mobile apps are popular in different geographical locations and compare them with your competitors.

Step 4 – Develop a prototype

After writing down the main thoughts of the app, the next step is to develop MVP. Choose the basic features of the app and prototype them. The MVP of your app allows you to ship the app early into the market with least costs. Creating a quick prototype will bring life to your idea. It primarily allows you to define the information hierarchy of the design, making it easier for you to plan the layout.

Step 5 – Design the app

You can lay foundation for the future interface by developing sketches. Visualize the core concepts to design the structure and layout of your application. Designing plays a very important role in making the app successful. Mobile app developers should focus on the UI design, features, and multi-touch gesture and consider different designing platforms. Design of the app creates an instant impact on the mind of the user, while ensuring usability of the app.

Step 6 – Pick a suitable approach to develop the app

The next step is to pick the right mobile app development approach. Selecting the right approach from native, web or hybrid is highly important. You can choose the approach based on your requirement, time and budget. Native apps deliver the best user experience, but need a lot of time and skills. On the contrary, web apps are quick and cheap to develop, and can be run on different platforms. Hybrid approach is the latest one that contains native container with web coding.

Step 7 – Integrate the app with proper features

After picking a suitable approach, the next step is to draw the features and functionalities of the app. Plan the features to understand your expectations. You can hire a mobile app development company to polish the app features and functionalities. Most of the mobile app development service providers help their customers draw app features and functionalities for better usability. If you are not sure about the features to add, you can take advice from mobile App Development Company.

Step 8 – Get feedback and integrate relevant one

Once you have designed app and integrated relevant features into it, the next step is to make it live on the app store. Beta testing is the first opportunity to get feedback from target customers. Before beta testing, you should eliminate device specific bugs to assure maximum assurance of mobile app. Release and deploy the app on the app store. The first set of users will give you an idea of how your app is — in terms of performance, usability and functionality. Based on the feedback of the users, you can improve and enhance the app. Keep an eye on the user feedback and try to build it constantly.

Step 9 – Capture metrics

There is a great increase in the number of mobile app users in the recent years. The need to collect accurate metrics is very important. The need to collect accurate metrics from different audience is important, as the number of consumers using mobile app is raising steadily. Whether it is funnel analysis or measuring social sharing, one should capture all the metrics to check its reputation.

Step 10 – Upgrade the app with new features

After capturing the metrics, it is important to upgrade the app with innovative features. A mobile app without features loses its ability to run for long time. Upgrading the mobile app with new features will enhance its visibility on app store. You should also ensure to keep the app updated to meet the new guidelines of different mobile application platforms. You can even eliminate features that are not key to your main idea.

Step 11 – Market the app

Though your app is downloaded by many, you should never stop marketing the app. Mobile app marketing plays a very important role in making the app successful. Market is as soon as it is released in the market, so that it is not lost in the multitude of apps on app store. You will know through the feedback whether the users liked the app or not.

The above steps are infrangible and should be followed while building your first mobile app. This is a step-by-step guide for beginners to build their first app in an effective manner. Once you start, you will know how easy it is to build an app. You will be flooded with questions and feedback from users, once you launch the app. You should always be prepared to answer the questions!

With an ability to learn and apply, passion for coding and development, Gagandeep Sethi has made his way from a trainee to Tech Lead at Promatics. He stands at the forefront of the fatest moving technology industry trend: hybrid mobility solutions. He has good understanding of analyzing technical needs of clients and proposing the best solutions. Having demonstrated experience in building hybroid apps using Phonegap and Ionic, his work is well appreciated by his clients. Gagandeep holds master’s degree in Computer Application. When he is not at work, he loves to listen to music and hang out with friends.

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About Promatics

Promatics is an ISO 9001:2008 certified offshore web and mobile application development company with a strong team of 100+ highly skilled IT experts delighting SMEs across USA, Europe and APAC. Our services and solutions help clients to achieve tangible business value and remain competitive in today’s evolving marketplaces.